DYING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

2AM. I’m awake but not very coherent. It’s very dark. Never before have I thought I might be dying at a time when that was realistic but not a sudden accident. No thought about the fate of the world, the safety of the village, the predictability of the climate nor the state of my pantry is cheering me up. I’m 82. My whole birth family is dead except for a niece and her very admirable family that I’ve never met.

At that point in the night I could only think of the media story of a street person who developed sciatica, had to live in a wheel chair and lost his job, his house, his family, etc. My income is secure until they cancel social security. I own my house until the county tries to take it. I have plenty to do and enough cats to keep me busy.

I just learned that neighbors up the street are behind the many small thefts around town. They were a couple and the woman was just killed in a car accident. They had children and a nice dog who is now running in the streets. This is not about virtue and who deserves what.

Feeling one might die and wishing one might die are not far apart. I have a good friend who is much more gallant about it than I am. We’ve both gone a little cosmological. Historical is not encouraging. We don’t “do” pretty.

I’ve given up my 1,000 word goal per post for now, but I’ll be back at it later. I’m impressed at how much either a systematic condition is involved in this sciatica or how much the amount of Advil I’m taking is affecting my mind. I can’t type dependably and tend to set things down before they are quite secure.

Maybe it’s only fair that this affliction hits me just as I try to turn to “embodiment” thought, pulling it back into the concept of institutional (organized) religion through the theory of how it first develops, so that it recovers the humanities. I’m appalled that medicine has become so data-driven, emotionless, and cold that it misses half of what is most important: feeling. They don’t teach compassion in med school anymore.

“Enlightenment” was a powerful movement and should not be rejected, but quite aside from numbers, it left out too much. Someplace there is something going on that just possibly might save us all — not in parts, but whole. But my opinion is that Modernity is pretty much a bust.

The Repubs constantly forget that they are just as vulnerable and aging just as quickly as everyone else. Worse, what they know is likely to be irrelevant now. They don’t have enough time to spend their money. We know now how they did their hat trick and how to bring back the laws they threw out. Mere holidays will not stop this.

I’m consciously cheerleading.